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The Rudolf Steiner Archive

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The Karma of Materialism: Foreword
Translated by Rita Stebbing

Karma is the name of a process operating at an unconscious level in the development of a human individuality, a process normally observable only in its effects; and the Karma of materialism is such a process operating in the development of materialism. So underneath the history of materialism (which would amount to a history of ideas, culminating in reductionism) Steiner reveals an unconscious process extending both before and after that history. Reductionism as theory manifests first in natural science, but the change of consciousness underlying it began much earlier, and it continues now irrespective of theory and affects the whole life of humanity.
Incidentally if this way were not a way that is wide open to us, we should never have learned to speak or to understand anything at all. I believe therefore that readers will not be lacking who will by-pass any initial stumbling-blocks as they enter into the substance of the book and become more and more impressed by its whole tone, by the authority born of wide learning, long reflection and exceptional insight and by the profound sense of responsibility, alike to the truth and to humanity, that breathe through its wide-ranging paragraphs.
176. Aspects of Human Evolution: Lecture I 29 May 1917, Berlin
Translated by Rita Stebbing

In these difficult times it would be best for us to investigate aspects of spiritual science which in some measure can help us understand the deeper-lying causes of the present situation. In view of this, I propose to speak about certain results of spiritual investigation which throw light on this question.
He told me afterwards that this explanation of the peculiarity of present events was like a ray of light helping him to understand many phenomena. The abstract ideals of youth, the abstract discussions about freedom, indulging one's own pleasure while believing to have a world mission; all these things are characteristic of Woodrow Wilson.
These are things I wanted to say to help us understand our present age. 1. “It is better to be a beggar ...”
176. Aspects of Human Evolution: Lecture II 05 Jun 1917, Berlin
Translated by Rita Stebbing

Current events do indeed present a riddle to those who attempt to understand them merely by means of the materialistic concepts and ideas of our age. That we are in need of new ideas must be obvious from the many things we have considered.
Spiritual science provides mobile concepts which, in contrast to the rigid, lifeless concepts understood by means of the physical body, must be understood by means of the ether body. Thus, in the course of normal evolution, man becomes ever poorer in concepts.
Only people who make no effort and feel no inclination to understand what is actually taking place in the world can pass these things by. Yet it is of utmost urgency that one should try to understand.
176. Aspects of Human Evolution: Lecture III 19 Jun 1917, Berlin
Translated by Rita Stebbing

I have tried from various viewpoints to draw your attention to the greater post-Atlantean period, by describing wider aspects as well as details from it, because only our understanding of that period makes our own comprehensible. To allow the whole of mankind's post-Atlantean evolution to work upon us awakens understanding for our own time.
If you imagine vividly what I shall now describe, you will find it easy to understand. People who had reached the age when the body began to decline, clearly perceived the beings of the elements.
Just think how essential it is that we acquire concepts enabling us to understand people living on Russian soil. Remarkably little is done to reach such understanding. What is thought about the Russian people, whether here or in the West or in Central Europe, is very far from the truth.
176. Aspects of Human Evolution: Lecture IV 26 Jun 1917, Berlin
Translated by Rita Stebbing

On closer reading one comes to realize that he simply has no understanding of the subjects he writes about. Everything is unbelievably distorted—in fact, so distorted that anyone who takes such matters seriously is faced with an enigma.
It can hardly be expected that such a man should understand anything; even when he tries, he manages to misunderstand. For example, you will not find anywhere in my writings the expression “cell body.”
That is why he says earlier that: “Ancient India is not the present India, for generally all geological, astronomical and historical designations are to be understood symbolically.” (p. 258) No one would think it possible for a sensible person to gain the impression from the description in Occult Science that ancient India is to be understood symbolically even though the concept does not coincide with that of modern India.
176. Aspects of Human Evolution: Lecture V 03 Jul 1917, Berlin
Translated by Rita Stebbing

However, Brentano had also to suffer the destiny of modern striving man, lack of understanding; his struggles were little understood. A closer look at Brentano's intensive search for answers to the questions, What is true?
Christianity means to understand people all over the earth. It means understanding even human beings who are in realms other than the earth.
Not till the concrete concepts of spiritual science are understood and applied can things be done that are necessary for a complete revision of our understanding of law and morality, of social and political matters.
176. Aspects of Human Evolution: Lecture VI 10 Jul 1917, Berlin
Translated by Rita Stebbing

That is why the Western Europeans, who have to resort to connections of a cruder nature, find it so extraordinarily difficult to understand the soul characteristics of the Russians. And such understanding is more essential now than ever before.
When someone is in a dreamy state during waking life, it is not without effect on his karma. Anyone who really understands what I have indicated concerning life's hidden connections will recognize in this incidence a definite picture of how karma works.
Many important passages in Goethe's works can be understood only if it is recognized that Goethe does not want to be pinned down in a materialistic sense.
176. Aspects of Human Evolution: Lecture VII 17 Jul 1917, Berlin
Translated by Rita Stebbing

It is in regard to the physical aspect that differences arise. The spiritual facts are directly understood as one takes hold of them. If one wants to discover what significance they have for the physical world, then the corresponding physical facts must be sought out afterwards.
By means of the spirit one explains what in life must be spiritually explained. Many find it extremely difficult to understand that in spiritual research the law comes first, and the law; i.e., the spiritual aspect, then points to the physical phenomenon to which it applies.
The answer to this question is important if one is to understand what is taking place. However, even when the individual is a representative of mankind, he can only be understood through the science of the spirit.
176. Aspects of Human Evolution: Lecture VIII 24 Jul 1917, Berlin
Translated by Rita Stebbing

The phenomena are there, but no attempts are made to understand the inner laws that govern them; however, they exist and the day is not far off when man will regret that he did not seek knowledge of them.
It is so very important that these things are understood. They indicate the forces which at present are shaping the world, and we are placed in their midst.
Eastern, Western and Central Europe, though next to one another in space, can be understood only when also seen in a historical sense as following one another. This, of course, must be done in the right way.
207. Cosmosophy Vol. I: Lecture I 23 Sep 1921, Dornach
Translated by Alice Wuslin, Michael Klein

This is how he would experience it, and he would indicate as a result (if he were rightly understood) what were from his point of view the most important ingredients, the most important impulses, of modern civilization.
Tradition has preserved this saying, and today it is still repeated—without any understanding of its innermost nature—in the secret orders and secret societies of the West that outwardly still have a great influence.
Both in the East and in the West these things escape the crude intellectual concepts of our time. Intellectual understanding strives somehow to draw the blood from the living organism, put it on a slide, place it under a microscope, look at it, and then form ideas about it.

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